"In every street and workplace, it should be proclaimed: 'You all belong to God! Whether you are godless or devout, under judgement or under grace, blessed or damned, you belong to God, and God is good and wants what is best for you. Whether you are dead or alive, righteous or unrighteous, in heaven or in hell, you belong to God, and as soon as you are swept into the current of faith, the good within you will emerge.' Speak like this and you will have different results from those who peddle the truncated gospel that gives with one hand and takes away with the other."

Every year there is a street artists festival/competition in Vevey. This year we went for the three days in a row and saw most of the artists, some twice.

There were a lot of really talented people, including two amazing japanese artists who won second and third prize. If you ever have a chance to watch Yosuke Ikeda you really should! Les Dudes (second photo) won first prize, and la Bella Tour (first photo) were really excellent too.

Sufficiently for lots of people to lose their heads and all perspective.

As someone pointed out on a site I read: "If a father risked his children's life like that in the UK, he'd be prosecuted and any other children would be taken into care."

But one mustn't judge, as they were escaping from war-torn Syria.Except it wasn't Syria, it was Turkey.

You probably didn't see this interview anywhere (for those who haven't got the time, it's the child's aunt explaining that they hatched the plan of trying to get into Europe so the father could get his teethfixed). I guess it might be a hoax. But then all of it could be.

There are so many ways to look at this. What I don't understand is why we weren't falling over ourselves to take in persecuted Christians from Iraq and Syria from the very start. Now the thing has festered so long that not only many of them have perished, but there is a situation where there is no easy way to tell the difference between people genuinely fleeing hardship, proto-terrorists, and simple chancers.

What seems obvious to me is that we should be taking the refugees who've done things by the book, not the ones who are entering illegally and dangerously (and sometimes violently). And quite honestly, I'm not a multiculturalist, so the Slovakian PM saying "we'll take the Christians" seems totally reasonable to me, even though it is totally non-PC.

I asked some French friends recently how come refugees were so desperate to get out of France and into the UK - it's not as if they're in danger in France ("France has a great many problems, but it is not a state where someone might have a well-founded fear of persecution" - Dan Hannan), and what about that lovely welfare state? The obvious answer (except that I hadn't thought of it) is that in France they have ID cards. And if you don't have an ID card, they can chuck you out. In the UK, once you're in, your in.

Note that this doesn't make me more in favour of ID cards, just more in favour of adequate border controls...

One thing that kind of swayed me in this was the thought: "Well, yes, but how desperate must you be to risk your life?". And I still mostly think that, but then you get reports like this (from the BBC no less): Risking death at sea to escape boredom"He admits his situation is far from desperate. He has a job, albeit a low paid one, as a security guard and a roof over his head. He does not fear for his life on a daily basis."

Or risking death at sea to get your teeth fixed.

I find that difficult to get my head round.

But it is important to try and get my head round, because this is something where just listening to your heart could go very wrong.

"There is a part of us, of course, that says: ‘Never mind the strict definition. If someone is running away from brutality and misery, and wants to work, let him stay.’ But think through the implications. There are tens of millions, perhaps hundreds of millions, in Africa and the Middle East who would then make the journey.

Yesterday, seeing the big push on the UK government voting site, where 300'000 people voted for the UK to 'do something', I was reminded of church, where people also often say that 'the church' should do something. But generally, when it comes to 'doing' it, one discovers that - to paraphrase Maggie Thatcher - "there's no such thing as church". There's just people, families, you and me, and if everyone says "it's our responsibility" but no-one says "it's my responsibility", then nothing is going to happen. Quite honestly, I think that vote would have been more credible if it had happened on Kickstarter, where people have to put their money where their mouth is.

Can they stay in your house? And for how long? And who's paying?

If your 'empathy' doesn't extend further than clicking on a link... well... I have no words, but you should probably shut up too :)

A sneak peek into Merkel's motivation?"Germany has a different position on migrants than the UK because it desperately needs people, any people, to plug the huge hole left by its demographic crisis." - (Britain in numbers)

Whose fault is it anyway?"The West is not at fault for the chaos in the Middle East, we Middle Easterners are! We are the ones who have a bloodlust and long to shed each other’s blood for silly reasons. Your “failure” to stop us from destroying ourselves IS NOT YOUR FAULT!! We are a confusing and hard to deal with lot! Please get that!!" - (Rita Malik)